Building the future from the past What traditions are maintained by your company? Do you have an enthusiastic company sports team with a history of incredible wins? Perhaps your traditional company picnic is the rallying point that employees look forward to all year, then talk about throughout the following year. Do you value your company’s traditions as much as your employees do, or do they feel like an unnecessary expense? Can you see their importance in the longevity and growth of your enterprise? Should they be maintained, changed...

"A grateful heart is the beginning of greatness." ~ James E. Faust I have been active with SHRM in one way or another since 2003 or so and, of course, know about the SHRM Foundation. I knew the Foundation did research, published its findings so we could all benefit from that research, assisted with the education and development of HR professionals and, in addition, offered scholarships for such. However, for the most part, I didn't personalize this part of SHRM. I have now! In June, I attended the SHRM15 Conference in Vegas and I had the pleasure of...

  Imagine for a moment that in attempting to fill an engineering position for your employer, you bump into obstacles left and right. The major obstacle, however, is not one you expected, such as the shortage of STEM professionals, the changing nature of work, or new technologies. Rather, it's the lack of organizational history in your candidates. The position will require an understanding of how past technologies affect future strategies. Baby Boomers and even some Generation X workers have the relevant skillsets—but they are reaching retirement age, and your organization, like so many others, is feeling the effects of their departure....

  Taking your HR career to the next level is not always easy—even if you are a super performer at your current job. Moving to the next level often requires many different competencies and skill sets that will allow you to grow into a strategic executive who is action-oriented and who embraces technology. It also requires an understanding of your strengths and of how others view you—and this is where your personal brand steps into the picture.   Your personal brand emerges as you create a recognizable, professional name and reputation for yourself. This is critical to your career growth. Self-awareness...

Adapting Learning for the New Workforce The reality of the generational shift in today’s workforce is undisputed. Much has been written about the sea change taking place, with baby boomers retiring in record numbers as millennials are entering the workforce and taking on their first supervisory roles. Consider these numbers: 10,000 daily Medicare enrollments 73,000,000 — the size of the Baby Boomer class 2015 — the year that millennials become the largest demographic in the US workforce What does this mean for the Learning function? In a word: Opportunity. Programmatic Learning as we once knew it is dead! Now is the ideal time to conduct a post-mortem on past practices from a content, process, and delivery standpoint. With today’s technology, we can more fully engage tomorrow’s leaders while improving efficacy. Beyond the issues of learning content, instructional process, and delivery vehicles, the Learning function can make greater contributions to any organization by thinking beyond traditional functional boundaries. Learning opportunities and "teachable moments" reside within and across the entire employment experience and lifecycle, including the following: Organizational structure: The trend toward flatter organizations scares people if they think about career growth from a traditional perspective… always up. Cross -functional assignment, rotations, and special, entrepreneurial projects present opportunities to engage and retain employees? Processes: Are there clear expectations about what to do and how things should be done? We’ve been lobbying for clear expectation setting for years … and not doing it very well, given that the largest majority of employee complaints, disputes, and reasons for disengaging comes from a lack of shared perspectives on expectations. The new workforce brings with it a work ethic built around technology. That, in and of itself, should compel us to take more time clarifying our views as managers and seeking input from our employees about what and how things should be done. Communications: How do employees get information, and are there opportunities to share insights and knowledge across the organization? Consider that the traditional "cascade" approach to communication is virtually extinct. We’ll talk about that a lot more in subsequent blogs. Staffing: How is the organization populated, from sourcing and recruiting to onboarding? Power and authority: What is the relationship between worker and boss? Are managers adept in coaching their direct reports? How can employees take a greater role in their own development? Working through these questions can be a positive, but sometimes painful, exercise; often, there is resistance to opening up current practices to such scrutiny. Yet, the upside is the ability to generate new ideas collaboratively that can lead to more innovative solutions. The collaborative part of the exercise is just as important as the innovative outcome. Why? Because that’s how you engage and retain this new talent. One example is staffing. Organizations search for and onboard talent much differently than in the past. Gone are the days of job searches conducted solely by newspaper want ads with paper resumes delivered by postal mail and rounds of in-person interviews to winnow down the pool of candidates. Today, social networks and online employment websites have expedited the process, opening the search to a broader pool of talent. The numerous channels available for communication and access also allow organizations to build healthy relationships with potential candidates before they even become candidates or employees, resulting in a greater likelihood of a positive experience for both employer and employee. Technology plays a further role as interviews are often by phone or video chat, and sometimes, the first face-to-face meeting with a candidate can be when reporting to work. By leveraging technology and addressing the significant transformation underway in the workforce, the Learning function can progress toward more sustainable solutions that engage and motivate an ever-larger segment of its population. At the same time, these solutions can better address issues occurring today in the workforce and prepare for those ahead. As for individuals in today’s workforce, the new ways of working that result from this evaluation can lead to greater commitment and achievement, along with a healthier and better-balanced work life. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Adapting Learning for the New Workforce appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Guest post by Zach Lahey, Human Capital Management Research Analyst with Aberdeen Group. By nature, the life sciences industry is one of innovation. People who rise to leadership positions in this... Visit site for full story...

Posted by Dawn Marie Bailey As a writer for the Baldrige Program, I have a lot of fun learning about how various people and organizations use the Baldrige Excellence Framework to guide, focus, and improve their operations. I recently had the pleasure of a virtual conversation with Shannon Block, president and CEO of the Denver Zoo, on how the zoo is using Baldrige principles to achieve its mission, and how she is using these principles to successfully run the organization. It was especially gratifying to learn how Baldrige can help zoos be agile and nimble enough to tackle the sometimes-overwhelming issue of animal conservation around the world. How did you learn about Baldrige? I learned about Baldrige for the first time when I was the chief business development officer at Denver Health. I attended an awards ceremony when it clicked for me. Since then, I have used the philosophy when I was the CEO of Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers and now as the CEO and president of the Denver Zoo. I’m not sure I’d be a CEO today if I hadn’t understood those Baldrige principles I saw as an observer in that awards ceremony. How has Baldrige helped you get where you are today as a CEO? What learning has been most valuable? What is most valuable to me is understanding the strategic framework to run an organization; understanding that the order in which you do things is important. Mission, vision, and values come first. They are the soul of the organization. When we go down the road and make decisions that sometimes make us want to pull our hair out, the reason we get through it, the reason we understand it, is because they are decisions that help us move forward with our mission, vision and values. Then we have these big rocks in the road in the way of accomplishing our mission, vision, and values. Those are called strategic imperatives. From there, a strategic plan can be developed and people can be held accountable. The strategic framework helps people in the organization move together to accomplish goals. It doesn’t matter if you are running cancer centers or a zoo, the same basic principles apply. How do Baldrige principles help you with your work at the Denver Zoo? Can you share a story of a decision made at the zoo, inspired by Baldrige, that made you proud or helped animals, etc.? A strategic framework helps us move forward in a way that is constantly reinforcing our mission, vision and values. Denver Zoo’s mission is to secure a better world for animals through human understanding. Our strategic imperatives are around the guest experience, education/conservation, and financial predictability and management. This has changed the way we think about animal enclosure space. For example, given our mission, our first big project is making a new home for our tigers. But, because of our strategic plan, when this exhibit is completed next year, we will also be activating it from an educational standpoint. And, that will help us deliver our conservation message, which will hopefully help raise philanthropic support for our conservation projects around the globe. Leveraging the strategic framework allowed these cross-functional conversations of envisioning exhibit design and activation at the zoo with a logic that everyone could get behind-whether he/she was from the animal department, education department, or conservation biology team. How do you think other CEOs, other zoos, might benefit from the use of Baldrige? I’m presenting to other zoo executives across North America this coming September on how to use these principles to successfully run an organization. As zoos move into the future, we need to be nimble in identifying new solutions to protect animals around the world. Many animals are going extinct at such as fast rate that it becomes overwhelming sometimes to think about where to start to help. The Baldrige principles can help zoos stay focused as we try to make a difference for animals all over the world. Is there anything else you would like to share? I also am a firm believer that culture eats strategy for lunch. I always encourage new executives to apply the Baldrige strategic framework to understand change management. Change happens fast, but transition is slow. And, there are very normal emotions that come along with change. Creating an environment where your employees can talk through those emotions and realize that they are normal can help strategic frameworks advance in a lasting way that also respects most organizations’ biggest asset-their people!

82% of people have stopped doing business with a company due to bad customer service. (source) Advice from Jeff Hargett, Senior Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: If you didn’t believe it before, the statistics prove it: most customers at one time or another—whether deciding to join you as a new customer or stay with you as an existing customer—involve the "customer service experience" as a factor in that decision. Also, how many of your potential new customers are influenced by speaking with your existing customers when making that decision? How long will companies continue to convince themselves that better price points and more state-of-the-art equipment outweigh better customer service? At The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, we realize that our price points, our locations, our fine china and our linen thread counts can only get us so far. The one thing that impacts each and every customer—the one thing that is exclusively ours to control and that we can utilize to stake our claim of excellence in the Experience Arena—is our SERVICE. How many customers have you brought on board or kept from jumping ship because of your service? ∞ Join us for a one-day symposium, "Your Journey to Service Excellence." The day includes a keynote speaker, a Q&A session with The Ritz-Carlton executive panel, an optional networking reception and presentations about legendary service, employee engagement and developing a customer-centric culture. The Blog Post Significant Stat: Bad Customer Service appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Recently I was in a conversation with a financial services client and we were wrestling with this question: What presence skills do early career professionals and individual contributors need to develop to be successful in their roles AND advance in their careers? In today’s business world, this question is crucial. Fortune 500 companies are looking with dread at their leadership pipeline. Pearson Learning recently published a Learning Trends Report that coins the term "The Next Generation Leadership Crisis" in which "bench strength" for leadership positions is seriously lacking. Back to the conversation with my client and what newbies can do to advance—after a brow-knitting pause on both our parts, she blurts out, "They need to be able to communicate to the audience in front of them!" When early-career professionals give a status update or an elevator pitch, they are not taking their audience into account. They aren’t asking the essential questions: What does this person care about? What do they need to hear? What is their stake in this project or initiative? Instead they communicate from their own point of view, often giving too much detail and digressing from the main topic. This results in impatience, interruption, and eye-glazing on the part of their manager, team or client. We’ve all heard of the WIFM (What’s in it for Me). I’d like to encourage early career professionals instead to start thinking about the WIFT (What’s in it for Them). Not you, but what is in it for your managers, executives, team, and clients. Next time you have to deliver a project status update, I encourage you to plan ahead a bit and ask yourself: What does my audience care about? If it’s your team, they are likely to want to know how your update affects their work flow, so you might say something like, "The client has signed off on the budget and the timeline, and we don’t anticipate any changes to the engagement in this phase." That will both reassure them and let them know they can move forward with their own individual work without disruption. What do they need to hear from me? If it’s your manager, he or she will most likely want to hear that the project is on track and there aren’t any red flags, and if there are, express them succinctly: "The client wants to sign off on the engagement one phase at a time. We’ll need to do some of the front work without their sign-off, but we’ve worked with this client before and they’ve always come through." What will engage them? If you run into a senior leader in the hallway or at a networking event, they will most likely want to hear high level how your department is doing, and frankly, how you are either driving growth or reducing costs: "Our department has put some significant operational efficiencies in place this quarter which will mean fewer new hires next year." "WIFT" is a whole new way of thinking. Once you turn the spotlight onto the person you’re talking to, your whole perspective can change. Your language becomes more focused. You talk less. You speak with more passion and vocal variety. And those qualities are exactly what your colleagues, managers and senior leaders want from you. And once you master the "WIFT", try the "WIFO" (What’s in it for the Organization). You’ll have the corner office in no time. Stay tuned for our second part of this series—WIFO: How You Can Help Your Organization by Knowing Their Needs. The post Forget WIFM, Try WIFT: The #1 Skill Millennials Need To Get Promoted appeared first on Ariel Group.        Related StoriesCommunicating Virtually? Body Language CountsGroup Presentations: Improving Your Rehearsal ProcessInspire, Motivate, Engage - While Doing More with Less 

The importance of technology planning for societies: a Q&A with Barry Pilson of TESOLBefore he headed off to Detroit for ASAE15, we spoke with Barry Pilson of TESOL about the importance of technology planning for societies and associations. Q. Can you tell us about your background and your current position? A. I’ve been in the associations field for just about 20 years. I have always worked in marketing/communications/membership with a technology…